Photo courtesy of: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/13/revealed-engine-data-indicates-mal…
For the past three weeks, people all around the world have been asking the same question: how does an airplane just vanish? The disappearance of the Malaysian Airlines plane (flight number MH370) has piqued the curiousity of the entire world because of the bizarre events that surround the entire situation. Did the pilot lose control? Why was there no distress signal? Did the Bermuda Triangle just swallow it up? Wild theories are running rampant as the citizens of earth are befuddled as to how such a tragedy could take place during a time of such technological advancement.
Here are the facts you should know:
1. MH370 was a Boeing 777 aircraft that never made it to its destination.
The plane took off from Kuala Lumpur (the capital of Malaysia) around 12:40 AM on March 8 and was scheduled to arrive in Beijing six hours later. Around 1:30 AM, however, air traffic controllers lost contact with the flight crew and the aircraft disappeared from all local radar screens. There is potential that a brief radar blip could have been the missing aircraft, however the blip was detected much further west than the aircraft was supposed to be meaning the plane had gone extremely off course.
2. There were 239 people on board.227 were passengers, 12 were members of the flight crew, and five of the passengers were under the age of five. Three of the passengers were American citizens.
3. Most experts are predicting the aircraft now lies at the bottom of the ocean. Satellite images have provided evidence of debris in the Indian Ocean, which is where the aircraft is predicted to have fallen. However, experts and analysts have been unable to positively identify any of it as being connected to MH370. On Wednesday March 26, information was released that they had discovered satellite images of 122 pieces of debris spotted between the coasts of Malaysia and Australia.
4. The Indian Ocean is one of the most dangerous in the world.Of all places in the world for a plane to go missing, the Indian Ocean is one of the worst. With unpredictable weather patterns and ferocious currents, the Indian Ocean was once known as the shipwreck capital of the world. Several search and rescue missions have already been thwarted due to bad weather and unsafe travel conditions.
5. The aircraft is officially considered “lost”.Much to the dismay for the families of those on board the missing aircraft, the chairman of Malaysia Airlines, Mohamad Nor Yusof, released a statement on Monday, March 24th saying, “We must accpet the painful reality that the aircraft is now lost, and that none of the passengers or crew onboard survived.”
Photo courtesy of Reuters
Sources:http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/10/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-knowns-unknow…